Let Your Fingers Do The Questing In Dungelot

Dungelot ($0.99) by Red Winter Software Limited is a dungeon crawler where your fingers do the walking. An overhead view of the dungeon is shown.

The dungeon is a 5 x 6 grid with covered cells. Journey to each adjacent cell by tapping on it. From there you’ll see whether you’re facing nothing, a treasure chest, or an enemy.

The paladin is the starting character, who is good against fighting the undead. Once you reach higher levels, though, you can select to play the vampire, dwarf, or assassin.

Unlike other dungeon crawlers, such as Epic Hearts, you don’t see the hero at all in the main area of play. Instead, you simply keep track of which cell you last visited and that’s where the hero is.

Encountering a bad guy for the first time will bring up a scroll that gives you information about them. After that, you’ll need to swing your sword by tapping them. Spells are also available for use against the monsters. Tap the spell you want from your inventory and then you’ll be able to set your target.

One of the bad guys will hold the key, which unlocks the door to advance to the next level. But it’s worth your while to explore every part of the dungeon because there are bonuses for clearing it.

Some cells will just be armed with traps. Once tapped, there’s no undoing it. Other cells have “challenge doors” that will reward you for doing a specific thing (such as killing a monster in one stroke).

This is a really good game for playing on the go. The pace of the game is determined by how quickly you select each new cell.

The fact that you only reveal dangers when picking a new cell also has a limitation that you never need to be on guard for roaming monsters. You also don’t need to worry about monsters teaming up against you.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to this game is that it’s back to the beginning if you die. You’ll be able to upgrade your character in the store, but that’s little consolation for having to start all over from level one.

At least this game doesn’t tip its toes in the waters of freemium. The only way to earn gold is to fight for it. Speaking of buying, there is a lite version of the game if you’d like to try it first.

Quest to the App Store if you wish to seek this gem.